The company had allegedly been involved in cheating people along the lines of Ablaze Info Solutions Private Limited. The arrested directors were Anurag Garg, 40, and Sandesh Verma, 30.

Two directors of Webwork Trade Links Pvt Ltd, an online social trading company, were arrested by Uttar Pradesh police from the office of Senior Superintendent of police (SSP) in Surajpur on Friday.

The company had allegedly been involved in cheating people along the lines of Ablaze Info Solutions Private Limited. The arrested directors were Anurag Garg, 40, and Sandesh Verma, 30.

On February 13, the Sector 20 police had registered a case against the two directors, based on a complaint lodged by a Ghaziabad-based insurance agent AK Jain. Subsequently, their office in Sector 20 was raided.

Sensing trouble, Garg and Verma escaped from the city and had been evading arrest ever since.

Police said that on Friday, the duo had come to the office of SSP Dharmendra Singh in Surajpur, to plead innocence that their company was doing a fair online trading business. They were arrested from there.

“Two cases of cheating were already registered against the two directors. We had thoroughly investigated their frauds and involvement in duping gullible people. I listened to them patiently and later ordered the team to arrest them,” Singh said.

Singh said that the directors’ visit to his office was a gimmick to distract the police from investigating the case. “They thought they would come directly to my office and it would prove their innocence. Since February 13, we have come across their fake schemes and records. Both have been arrested now, more developments will follow with their confession,” he said.

Like Anubhav Mittal of Ablaze Info Solutions Private Limited, who had allegedly duped over seven lakh people, the duo was paying their customers Rs 6 per “like”, while Mittal’s Ablaze used to pay Rs 5 for a “like” to their customers for a certain period.

Police said that the complainant, AK Jain, had invested Rs 3.5 lakh with Webwork, as per their scheme. He got returns for a few days, but later the web portal stopped paying him. The firm used to ask people to invest Rs 11,000 to Rs 57,500 in order to become a publisher in the company. The company subsequently sent links of websites, which should be liked by a publisher to make profit.

Anurag Garg, a resident of Crossing Republic in Ghaziabad, originally hails from Nehru Nagar, Garh Road, Meerut. He has done BBA from a Meerut college. Police said that after Webwork was established in September last year, he has been earning as salary of Rs 2 lakh per month.

Sandesh Verma, hailing from Moh Lohar Kundi, has been residing at Old Double Storey, Amar Colony, Lajpat Nagar-4 in New Delhi. He passed Class 11 and holds a diploma from Diamond Institute Gujarat.

A username and a password were provided to investors to access the firm’s website.